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If your new month starts early feel free to join this thread, or if you're still working on your August budget, then keep on posting in the:August 2013 Grocery Challenge

As always this challenge is to reduce your own grocery budget to levels that you will be pleased with, not forgetting that we always recommend that you stay inside your own comfort levels and take things gently one step at a time. Remember that this is not a competition....it's designed to take you and your grocery spending to a level you are happy with.

If you are new to the challenge I have quoted the advice from Galtizz below which will help you get started.

Please post into this thread for help and advice and support at any time. Good luck to everyone taking part!

“

I have said this before, but for all the newbies to the challenge;

For the first month I took a guess at the budget but I really had no idea how much I was spending.

I found the best thing is to have a guess the first month but SAVE ALL OF YOUR RECEIPTS (and yes, that does include the ones from the local shop when you run out of milk ), then at the end of the month add them all up and have a look if you were on budget, if not, it doesn't matter because your budget was a guess. For the next month you can use the total of your receipts and take a bit off to get a realistic budget, just shave off as much as you think you can, it could be £1 a week or £20 a week.

If you are currently spending £200 a month don't suddenly drop it to £100 - you'll never do it but if you cut £20 a month off for a few months you'll get there eventually without feeling you're missing out on anything.

You might think you've done everything you can in the first month but someone always comes up with a new idea and, if you try it you often find you save a bit more (unless you are SarahSaver who is an expert at this and could only save more if she turned her back garden into a paddy field and lived on rice ) In the first month I thought, I'm planning meals, I couldn't possibly save any more, but then I started double cooking and freezing, and making soup instead of buying it in tins.

I've been doing this since Feb but only saved ALL of my receipts last month, it has given me a much better idea of where it is all going. Budget for next month is £80 for 2 of us, I'll start on 30/4. I could probably save more, by eating different foods but I can afford to live on £80, I have saved a lot of money since Feb. and I don't waste food or money any more. So I'm happy with my budget.

”

By request, here is Spiggles wonderful helpful post

“

We all have different budgets that suit our households. The most important thing to remember is that you set yours according to your needs and finances. It can take time to get to where you want to be too so don't knock yourself out if you go over in the first few months. We are here to support each other and it is not a competition.

I thought it might help to outline where we've come from and the top tips I've learned.

When we started in March 2010 we had spent in excess of £600 in the previous month. This had to stop, (there's only me and him and our two beautiful black cats) something which thankfully my OH completely agreed with so I have been lucky that he has been on board from the start. He gave me his debit card voluntarily and I still keep hold of it until he needs to get something for the home. At the same time we set up a system of pocket money (pm) at £15 each per week which doesn't count towards the GC and which we can each spend as we wish with no comebacks or complaints. OH predominantly uses his pm on his beer and I ferret mine away mostly.

The next step was to set up my own spreadsheet which is absolutely simple onto which I put all spends so that I have a continuous running total for the month and for the year. We initially set our budget at £280 per month and brought it down to £240 where it resides for most of the year it is occasionally increased to allow for extras e.g. Christmas to £260.

The important 'tools' we found greatly helped and continue to do so now are:

Stocktake cupboards, fridge, freezer - make lists and ensure that the older products get used up first. You'll be amazed at what you find squirrelled away and it will help with your shopping list as you'll realise that you don't actually need so much.

Before you go shopping check staples - running out of milk, bread, butter, etc often leads to going into a shop for one thing and coming out £20 lighter. Always check these and if they'll run out tomorrow buy them the same time as getting other things.

Always make a shopping list and stick to it - the supermarkets (sm) try every which way to get us to spend so having a list and strong resolve is the only way to beat them.

Keep every receipt - and then note it down on your spreadsheet/spend diary so that you always know where you are.

When tempted, ask yourself do you NEED it or just WANT it - now this advice goes with two things. Firstly, the things you see in store when shopping that APPEAR to be bargains - if you hadn't planned spending the money then its not a bargain. Secondly, the sm send us loads of vouchers for £X off a spend of £XX - if you had no NEED to spend £XX then have you SAVED anything???

Use my supermarket to compare prices (limited to four of the biggies) - The site may be used to actually do an online shop at whichever of the big four offers the best value or, if you have the time and sm availability, to make up lists for visiting each of the stores so that you can purchase all you need at different stores thus getting the best possible value. (I'd add, do a 'shop' virtually on this site and take the list you create on it with you, whichever one you shop at, it will help keep target prices in your head and allow you to spot bargains. MrM is not included but you can do a virtual list on their website so you know what you're going to be spending.)

Always have a list - this is just as important when shopping online as shopping on foot.

Use Approved Foods online (with a list!) - if you don't mind out of date things (ood) or you can search for only in date items. The only drawback is storing the goods as far as I can tell. Oh, and watch the delivery as it's done on a scaled charge for weight so keep an eye on it. You can of course do an AF order with friends, family, colleagues or like minded neighbours. Other GCers use Big Br*nds 4 Less too.

Invest in a breadmaker - we have saved so much by making our own bread. The prices in the shops are extortionate for bread these days. There's loads of advice on this thread and others in the forum on this.

Use the recipe lists - always posted at the front of a new thread. There are fantastic, tasty, healthy and economical recipes to use on them and there are a number of other threads on the forum such as Weezl's that will help you to eat well on a budget.

Shop locally - the local greengrocer (or preferably market but I don't have one ) is usually cheaper as an option for fruit and veg (f&v) than the sm. Often the prices may look the same but when you look at the quantity for the same price the greengrocer will be cheaper. The same goes for the local butcher. Often you will have far more variety of meat available, advice on how to cook a particular meat can be offered and there is (for me at least) no comparison in terms of quality. We buy our huge FR eggs there and I'm yet to find an equivalent FR egg in a sm at the same or lower price. Obvioulsy if you have your own chicks/know someone who has chicks you can get them even cheaper again.

Grow your own - it's quite simple to grow some f&v at home even if it's only in pots on the patio. There are also supportive threads on the forum for this.

Cook your own - making meals at home from ingredients is far more economical, often tastes better than shop bought and is probably far better healthwise.

Meal Plan - this is something that others can advise on as we don't do it. I have a tremendous capacity for eating the same food over many days but presented in slightly different form. For example, we could buy £7 worth of brisket from the butchers and eat it as pot roast for a couple of days, sliced for sarnies, sliced with a salad, chucked into a casserole or shredded up and fried as crispy beef.

Don't waste food - either only make what you need or use any leftovers for other meals/creations or freeze it for another day.

Withdraw the cash you want to spend - and keep it in a separate purse. This can be particularly effective as you have the money in front of you reducing rather than spending with plastic which is so easy to lose track of. Very useful when you first start out.

Don't go to the shops to browse - this can only lead to pain and hardship!!!

Keep posting and reading the thread - there really is no better supportive, wise and inspirational place to be! I think I saw that somebody mentioned forgetting to read/post. I get around this by using the Advanced button to post, below the window where your text is displayed you will see Additional Options. In the Thread Subscription box use the dropdown to select either instant email notification (this is what I use) or daily email notification before you submit your latest post. Then you will get an email into your inbox from which you can click to the thread to see what others are saying.

Always remember the sm is not your friend - it wants to profit from you and take as much of your money as it can coerce out of you!

So, there you go as a starting point. Others on here will offer tremendous advice on meal planning. And don't forget, the only silly question is the one you didn't ask!

See you all later,
Spigs

”

For quidelines on posting in this thread please read the second post in this thread.

Been to morrisons and lidls today. I spent £16.48 on various things - butter, fruit, bread, quorn chicken pieces, dishwasher tablets etc. Also got some new dummies for my son, some chocolates for his Christmas stocking and a new top (I don't include this in my budget).

Not bad and will see us through until Tuesday when me and a friend go to ALDI

Well the throw things in a pan and hope for the best sausage hotpot thing was very tasty but I'm still waiting for the damn thing to cool down so putting it in bowls instead of the plastic tubs wasn't today's cleverest idea. with the batch cooking I have planned for this weekend, I'm not going to have enough food tubs so thought I would portion into bowls today before transferring to freezer bags. Would be interested to hear top tips for cooling food down....

Freezer bag tied and put it a bowl of cold water. I stopped asking HIM to put my freezer bags away when he gets home from work. Usually i put them on the unit nearest my backdoor boy i need a draught excluder but it does chill stuff quick

I know it's not quite the same, but maybe have some stock dinner treats at the ready instead? We have a bag of chips in the freezer for treat nights and also some pizza dough. So that way we can have 'take aways' of a home made kind? Just an idea!

I started a grocery challenge the day I realised we had a got ourselves in a slight financial pickle. Our grocery spend has decreased every week, can't believe it. We're eating more food as well as a more varied diet, who knew!
w/c 16/8 - £77.42w/c 23/8  42.59w/c 30/8  20.12 w/c 6/9  18.54
w/c 13/9 - 14.56 and received 0.76p off tesco voucher

Been to mr waitys today for 8 free dr Os pizzas (with mocs) and got free range chicken for weekend, milk, rennies and other bits came to £11.20 then to iceland and spent £15.30. Dont know if I can spin grocery money out until end of sept , my purse looks decidedly empty

Tonight we had some belly pork marinated in Chinese flavouring with some roasted small potatoes, shallots and cherry tomatoes. Also did some salad. While the oven was on I roasted the last two beetroot, was going to have these as well but they were not quite done enough.

Will have to nip to butchers in the morning as I must have forgotten some bacon when I went the other day and DH wants bacon butties for his lunch tomorrow.

I've lost a receipt from earlier on this week and struggling to remember what I bought (and I tell OH off for that all the time)

Definitely milk (the 97p M**dow P*rk stuff from Mr Ms), salad - oh I remember, it was YS watercress at 50p and YS strawberries at 75p! Quite impressed I remembered as it was on Wed that I bought it

Haven't had strawbs in forever as I normally just buy apples, bananas and tinned fruit. Have to say, I appreciated them so much more than I used to when I bought berries all the time and half of them used to go furry in the fridge - they felt like a real luxury, I quartered them and had half at work yesterday and half today as a treat

OH bought cream (well actually E*mlea which I hate but oh well) for £1 yesterday, and a giant kitchen roll for 69p. Today he bought a pot noodle for his lunch and really rubbish processed white bread. I told him he had to pay for those himself but have relented on the white bread as he'll be eating it for lunches for a few days now so a bit silly not to count it I guess.

Made four portions of Spanish veg & bean stew for dinner tonight, half for our dinner and half for the freezer. Even though I'm trying to clear it out as it needs a defrost, shh. Made it in my pressure cooker which I'm just loving

My budget is out by around £15 for this week. I wasn't counting on getting sick and having to spend a load extra on buying tissues, paracetamol and orange juice in bulk. I also have veg for a casserole which I definitely don't have the appetite to eat. I plan on shoving it all in the slow cooker tomorrow and at least that way I can freeze it easily and not have it go to waste. I'm still resisting on the takeaways which are my usual downfall through, so I'm considering the week a success on that basis...

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